CSM9 Report: Week Thirty One

Xander Phoenaon Dec 8, 2014ShareTweet
An important one this week despite the fact not that much has been going on and I am ‘still’ stuck on this damned oil rig. Supposed to be off on Wednesday but Jack Frost may have other ideas…

Starmap

A new starmap is coming to Rhea if you choose to opt-in and once you see it, I’m sure you all will be. The old map was, well, dated and the new looks much more like something from a modern sci-fi video game. As Rise correctly points out, no it isn’t Dotlan. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure CCP should be attempting to out-Dotlan Dotlan with the in-game map. Maybe I (and many others) are just so used to Dotlan as a thing that any alternative just automatically doesn’t feel right even before we actually get to use it. That and I’m not big on a lot of dev time being spent trying to make something as good as Dotlan when it’s already out there and exists.
Anyway, the new 3D map is beautiful so go check it out.

Teams

Industry Teams as introduced in Crius are to be canned. People simply didn’t use Teams and rather than leave them dangling in New Eden uncared for and unloved, CCP decided that while they are on this brave new path, they would cut the feature altogether. Opinion is not unanimous on this one within CSM9 but my personal thought is I would rather CCP spend dev time on content people actively feel engaged with. If the numbers suggest that Teams would need an awful lot of work to get them into a position where players may actually care then there’s a pretty solid argument that it’s better just to get rid of them in the first place.
It’s worth noting that this is pretty much unprecedented in Eve. How often have half-finished and dead features been left in the game to simply grow stagnant? It says a lot about this new CCP that devs feel they can take this course of action. It is worth pointing out that they aren’t ruling out revisiting the feature some point down the line. If you have any ideas as to how Teams could be iterated upon in the future, post in the thread or in the comments below.

Cloning

There was a dev blog about the changes to cloning that were originally announced a few weeks back. I don’t really have a lot new to say about this other than to reiterate that I support this change fully and wholeheartedly. The key quote from the blog is this:
The same cannot be said for the current clone death mechanics. They are not a real choice, they are an illusion of choice. A choice between a bad option of losing ISK, and a worse option of losing skillpoints. A choice which does not affect the EVE universe as a whole, other than to empty players accounts of ISK and discourage the same interactions we want to foster.
Couldn’t have put it any better myself.

Video Competition

You’ve all seen the This Is Eve trailer by now. Hell, even I’ve seen it on the worst internet connection imaginable, over 100 miles from the nearest (not so) dry land. It is the best thing ever. At least until one of you guys make something even better. And CCP isn’t only offering you the chance to do so, they will show it at Fanfest and pay you ONE HUNDRED PLEX for the privilege. Oh, and three years’ Adobe Creative Cloud Complete license and THREE copies of the Eve Collectors Edition signed by the dev team. It is an insane prize so if you have any talent when it comes to making video (so not Hendrick basically), you should go take a look.

CSMX

I’ve been debating this one a while. I wanted to stand because I felt my work wasn’t complete. CSM communication with both CCP and the player base is better than ever. But it could be better. Nullsec is being worked on and CCP are on the right path. But the work isn’t complete and won’t be before the end of my term. I feel like there is still work to be done.
I’ve worked incredibly hard over the past six or seven months and I hope via the emails I have sent to you who contacted me, #tweetfleet, the Minutes and these weekly reports you have seen that too. And I hope you will give me your vote for CSMX.
Fly safe,
Xander
Tags: cloning, CSMX, starmap, teams, video

About the author

The good looking, funny, intelligent member of the team, Xander set up Crossing Zebras with Jeg in April 2012 mainly because he was talking too much about Eve on his other podcast. Playing the game for almost five years, Xander still has absolutely zero clue about how to actually play Eve but somehow still manages to talk a good game.

Keep up the good work – these weekly CSM reports are very helpful, thanks!

Saint Michael’s Soul

Firstly, thats great News about CSM X! Xander, you’ll be right at the top of the PC Gamer ballot with Mike Azariah and Sugar Kyle.

Secondly, about the industry teams – Are we getting a refund for the rest of the month? We’ve been using teams since they came out and currently have one active. I don’t mind them going to be honest though – Its always puzzled me how they actually managed to get into WH via “magic” or something.